She heard a footfall on the deck behind her. Her women were below, both of them violently unwell at sea. She had six of her own guards here.
Only six to go so far, and not Pharos, the silent one she’d so dearly wanted by her side-but he was always by her side, and the deception would have failed had he not remained in the palace.
It wasn’t one of the guards who approached now, nor the ship’s captain, who was being courteous and deferential in exactly proper measure. It was the other man, the one she had summoned to the palace to help her achieve this flight, the one who had said why Pharos would have to remain in Varena. She remembered weeping then.
She turned her head and looked at him. Middling height, long grey-white hair and beard, the rugged features and deep-set blue eyes, the ash-wood staff he carried. He was a pagan. He would have to be, she thought, to be what else he was.
‘The breeze is a good one, they tell me,’ said Zoticus the alchemist. He had a deep, slow voice. ‘It will carry us swiftly to Megarium, my lady.’
‘And you will leave me there?’
Blunt, but she had little choice. She had needs, desperate ones; could not make traveller’s talk just now. Everything, everyone who might be a tool needed to be made a tool, if she could manage it.
The craggy-faced alchemist came to the rail, standing a diffident distance apart from her. He shivered and wrapped himself in his cloak before nodding his head. ‘I am sorry, my lady. As I said at the outset, I have matters that must be attended to in Sauradia. I am grateful for this passage. Unless the wind gets wilder, in which case my gratitude will be tempered by my stomach.’ He smiled at her.
She did not return it. She could have her soldiers bind him, deny him departure at Megarium; she doubted the Emperor’s seamen would interfere. But what was the point of doing that? She could bind the man with ropes, but not his heart and mind to her, and that was what she needed from him. From someone.
‘Not so grateful as to stay by your queen who needs you?’ She did not veil her reproach. He had been a man inclined to women in his youth, she remembered learning once. She wondered if she might think of something yet, to keep him. Would her maidenhead be a lure? He might have bedded virgins but would never have slept with a queen before, she thought bitterly. There was a pain in her, watching the grey coastline recede and merge into the grey sea. They would be in the sanctuary by now, back home, beginning her father’s rites under the candles and the lanterns.
The alchemist did not avert his eyes, though her own gaze was icy cold. Was this the first of the prices she was paying, and would continue to pay, Gisel thought… that a queen adrift on another ruler’s boat, with only a handful of soldiers by her and her throne left behind for others to claim, could not compel proper homage or duty any more?
Or was it just the man? There was no disrespect in him, to be fair, only a frank directness. He said gravely,’I have served you, Majesty, in all ways I can here. I am an old man, Sarantium is very far. I have no powers that would aid you there.’
‘You have wisdom, secret arts, and loyalty … I still believe.’
‘And are right to believe that last. I have as little desire as you, my lady, to see Batiara plunged into war again.’
She pushed at a whipping strand of hair. The wind was raw on her face. She ignored it. ‘You understand that is why I am here? Not my own escape? This is no … escape.’
‘I understand,’ said Zoticus.
‘It isn’t simply a question of who rules in Varena among us, it is Sarantium that matters. None of them in the palace has the least understanding of that.’
‘I know it,’ said Zoticus. ‘They will destroy each other and lie open to the east.’ He hesitated. ‘May I ask what you hope to achieve in Sarantium? You spoke of returning home . .. how would you, without an army?’